BINTANGNEWS.com –US President Donald Trump
is abusing long-standing norms for ethical behavior and his conflicts of
interest put the country at risk of being seen as a “kleptocracy,” according to
the former head of the US government’s

ethics watchdog agency.

Walter Shaub, who quit this month as director
of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), said Monday the White House faces an
“ethics crisis” due to Trump’s business ties.

“His actions create the appearance of
profiting from the presidency,” Shaub told the Guardian. “The fact that
we’re having to ask questions about whether he’s intentionally using the
presidency for profit is bad enough because the appearance itself undermines
confidence in government.”

“It certainly risks people starting to refer
to us as a kleptocracy,” said Shaub, who left the OGE nearly six months before
his five-year term was due to finish and is now a senior director at the
Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit organization which advocates for ethics
reform.

Shaub condemned Trump for using his hotels
and other properties for government business in what is in effect a “free
advertising” campaign.

Trump’s intertwined business and political
interests, while not violating any laws, mark such a break from past norms that
there is an “ethics crisis” in Washington, he added.

On Saturday, the president dined at the Trump
International Hotel, which is situated halfway between the White House and the
US Capitol in the government-owned Old Post Office building, for which Trump
signed a 60-year lease in 2013.

“It’s wildly inappropriate for him to be
running a hotel that he’s leasing from the federal government. As a president,
you shouldn’t be doing business with the United States government. He’s his own
landlord at this point,” Shaub said.

The
Trump family has also been accused of benefiting from nepotism. The president
has come under a furious backlash from political opponents and ethics experts
for placing his children in positions of power.

Trump’s oldest daughter, Ivanka, as well as
her husband, Jared Kushner, are both unpaid advisers at the White House.